10 Best Mobile Apps for Easier Social Media Marketing on the Go

My personal experience as a freelancer so far has included lots of juggling kids, errands, running a household, family and friends who think you don’t need to work during the day, and – as a result – trying to get some bits of work done here and there. My iPhone has been my saving grace in the last couple of years. I can easily check and send emails, keep up with social media news, even make edits to documents in Drive using my Google mobile app.

However, I have found that one of the best ways to take advantage of my time – while waiting in the drive-thru line, waiting for an appt., or watching my kids at sports events – is to get some social media marketing done. This helps with efficiency when I am sitting down at my computer trying to get some writing done – I can easily tell myself that I do not need to get onto Twitter or Google+ because I just updated them earlier while sitting at the doctor’s office.

The following are some very cool apps for getting your social media marketing done while on the go.

Top Mobile Apps for Quick, Social Media Updating

All of these are top rated, best apps for iPhone 4+ and other smartphones. Up until now, you may be like me in that you didn’t even know that you could use something other than the individual apps for top social media sites. However, I have found my social media marketing productivity greatly increase after downloading several of these mobile apps.

So take a look, see which ones fit your needs best, and let the rest of us know how well (or poorly) it helped you in keeping up with social media while away from your desk.

1. Tweetr

This handy app only costs $3.99 in the App Store, but comes with so many unbelievable features for managing Twitter.

One of the downfalls to using just the Twitter app is that you can’t do a lot of tasks, such as uploading photos or videos or finding an address, from the app. If you have more than one Twitter account, you can’t manage both at the same time either. Tweetr allows you to do everything you need to do on Twitter, including managing multiple accounts, all without leaving this mobile app.

Other cool features include syncing between all of your devices, shortening of URLs, and saving exactly where you are at if you need to take a phone call in the middle of writing a tweet. My favorite feature, however, is definitely the scheduling of tweets. I can get several tweets written up and scheduled while waiting for my food to arrive. And I can schedule Tweets for those times that they are most likely to be seen, such as in the morning or on weekends.

The clear downside to this app? It’s only for Twitter. However, if your main focus for social media marketing is Twitter or if you tweet way more often than you update a Facebook page or Google+ page, as is the case with me, then this app is great for just when you want to focus on some twittering.

2. TweetBot for Twitter

This is another app that is only for Twitter. This one, though, only costs $2.99 in the App store yet comes with tons of awesome features. TweetBot is somewhat similar to Tweetr in that it shortens URLs, allows you to upload photos and videos, and even send tweets from different accounts. But TweetBot is more focused on interactions than on scheduling and managing of tweets.

For instance, you can much more easily manage important friends or family members by creating lists using the Timelines feature. This way, you can view only tweets from, say, your fellow graphic designers. Retweeting and viewing the details of a conversation is also very quick and easy in this app with gestures such as swiping to the right and left or tapping on an avatar. Probably the best feature is the fact that you can customize the tab bar to show actions that you use the most. You can also customize triple-tap to complete your favorite action, such as re-tweeting or translating tweets.

One of the main downsides to this app is that there is a bit of a learning curve. I had trouble remember which gestures completed which actions. And it takes some time setting up your Timelines. I simply don’t have that much time to configure hundreds of followers. Once you figure this app out, though, it makes it much easier to interact with others on Twitter.

3. Google+

Because there are not hardly any apps out there that include Google+, I use the actual app from Google+ itself. The interface is very nicely laid out. Click on the menu button in the upper left corner to see your entire menu. Along the bottom of the app is a menu with common actions such as uploading a photo or writing a post. You can even meet clients you’ve never met before face-to-face with the Google Hangouts feature – just as you would on your desktop. And you can chat with up to nine friends at one time on your mobile app.

I still have not yet figured out how to switch to my Google+ business page, however, which is a bit annoying. Supposedly Google+ rolled out an update that allows users to switch between pages, but I searched for the better part of an hour and never found it. A search online revealed that other Google+ users were having similar results. If you do all of your Google+ marketing from a personal page, though, this app will do the trick.

4. Google Apps Browser

If you conduct a lot of your freelance business using Google applications, then this app will help you clean up your phone a bit. You can access 18 Google apps from a single app, including Gmail, Docs, Maps, Finance, Reader, YouTube, Picassa, Images, Twitter, Facebook, and much more. And right now there is a free version available, so if you don’t like it, you can simply delete it. The interface is clean and easy to navigate with the menu options right along the bottom. And notifications are also noted on each of the menu buttons.

If you do not use many of the Google apps, however, you may find this one app to be too bulky to use. There’s quite a bit on here. For free, though, it certainly is worth a try if you are a Google addict like me.

5. Postling

This handy little social media app is completely free in the iTunes App store and allows you to manage several of the top social media sites (including Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, YouTube, Flickr, and LinkedIn) from one location on your iPhone or desktop. You can look up social media news, post to all of your synced up social media accounts at once, and even schedule posts ahead of time.

This app also allows you to reply to posts on each of your individual accounts, so if you hate switching between apps to respond to followers and friends, this may be the app for you. It even suggests actions you may want to complete – smart little feller!

One of the interesting features that caught my eye is that Postling will email you a daily recap of events from the day before that you may have missed. And then you can reply to each one directly from your email. You don’t even have to open the app!

Unfortunately, this mobile app is not yet available for Android devices, although the developers are currently working on an Android version to be released soon. But if you own an iPhone, I’d definitely give this app a try, especially since it’s free. Just download it on your desktop first, register, and then grab the app for your iPhone and you’ll be ready to manage your social media no matter where you are at!

6. HootSuite

If you already have a HootSuite account that you are using to manage multiple social media blogs, then you may just want to download the mobile app version. The best part of HootSuite Mobile is that you don’t need to have an iPhone, iPad, or Android device to access it. HootSuite Mobile also works with a Blackberry or Keitai phone. The next best thing about HootSuite is that it includes Google+ Pages and other top social media sites that other apps don’t include.

One of the downsides, however, is that the mobile version is still a bit clunky and difficult to navigate. With a company as big as HootSuite, though, I would expect them to continue to roll out updates with improvements to their mobile app.

7. Roost by VerticalResponse

Roost was just recently picked up by VerticalResponse and allows users to manage social media campaigns both online and via mobile devices. Once you create an account online for free, you can also download the app from iTunes App store for free. There is a premium version available for $25 per month which include a bunch of real estate features, not something that I as a freelance writer need.

The interesting features of Roost for iOS include the option to track analytics on social media campaigns. You can also organize posts by assigning them to campaigns, and of course scheduling of posts is also available.

One of the biggest downsides to this app is that it only accesses Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. However, if you already use Roost/Vertical Response to manage all of your marketing campaigns, including direct mail and email, then the mobile version will definitely help you keep tabs on your campaigns while you are out and about.

8. Flipboard

As a freelance writer, I have to stay up-to-date on current news events, the latest technology, and popular stories. Flipboard allows anyone to create a media experience almost like a personal magazine, customized for their own likes and dislikes. You get to choose which genres you want to see in your Flipboard. And you can connect to your social networks, and share, like, +1, email and more. In fact, you can even respond to interactions on your posts.

Personally, I really like the beautiful interface with the full screen images and magazine-like layout. And I like the feature that gave this app its name: you swipe the screen to flip through different stories.

There’s not much of a downside to this app, unless you count the fact that you can’t schedule posts and such from the app. However, that’s not what this app is for, and it really keeps me focused on the right content that I need to see, rather than getting distracted with funny cat pictures.

9. Currents

This one is very similar to Flipboard in that you can customize the type of news you see in your app. This one is more like an RSS feed, though, in that you choose the sites from which you want to see content. Instead of searching through genres, your app displays your added blogs and sites. You do still have the option of searching through the web, and you can also share content on your social media blogs.

Unlike Flipboard, you cannot actually connect to your social media sites – you can only share the link with your social media networks. To keep you focused on browsing through content, however, this app will certainly do the job!

10. Vine

Do you post a lot of videos to Twitter or Facebook? Then you may want to check out Vine, available from the App Store. It’s completely free and can almost be described as a sort of Instagram video app.

Basically, this app allows you to create short, looping videos to share with your friends. Vine compresses the videos so that uploading and viewing them is quite fast. You can even create your own community on this app by finding, following, and engaging users close to you. Searching for popular posts or editor’s picks is also available.

One of the downsides to this app is that it doesn’t connect with more than two social media networks. Yet, Vine keeps advertising that more networks are coming soon, so it may be wise to go ahead and download it now before the developers decide it is finally worth a fee.

What about you? Any favorite mobile apps you use for social media marketing as a freelancer? Feel free to share with the rest of us!